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Joh_8:21. A new scene here opens, as in Joh_8:12, and is therefore, after the analogy of Joh_8:12, to be placed in one of the following days (so also Ewald; and in opposition to Origen and the common supposition).
The connecting word, with which the further discussion on this occasion (it is different in Joh_8:12) takes its rise, is a word of grave threatening, more punitive than even Joh_7:34.
οὖν ] As no one had laid hand on Him, comp. Joh_8:12.
πάλιν , as in Joh_8:12, indicating the delivery of a second discourse, not a repetition of Joh_7:34.
αὐτοῖς ] to the Jews who were present in the temple, Joh_8:20; Joh_8:22.
ζητήσετέ με ] namely, as a deliverer from the misfortunes that are coming upon you, as in Joh_7:34. But instead of the clause there added, καὶ οὐχ εὑρήσετε , here we have the far more tragical and positive declaration, κ . ἐν τ . ἁμαρτ . ὑμ . ἀποθ .: and (not reconciled and sanctified, but) in your sin (still laden with it and your unatoned guilt, Joh_9:34; 1Co_15:17) ye shall die, namely, in the universal misfortunes amid which you will lose your lives. Accordingly, ἐν is the state wherein, and not the cause whereby (Hengstenberg) they die. The text does not require us to understand eternal death, although that is the consequence of dying in this state. Ἐν τῇ ἁμαρτίᾳ ὑμῶν , however, is to be taken in a collective sense (see Joh_8:24; Joh_1:29; Joh_9:41), and not as merely referring to the sin of unbelief; though being itself sin (Joh_16:9), it is the ground of the non-extinction and increase of their sin. Between ζητήσετέ με , finally, and the dying in sin, there is no contradiction; for the seeking in question is not the seeking of faith, but merely that seeking of desperation whose object is merely deliverance from external afflictions. The futility of that search, so fearfully expressed by the words καὶ
ἀποθαν ., is further explained by ὅπου ἐγὼ ὑπάγω , etc., for they cannot ascend into heaven, in order to find Jesus as a deliverer, and to bring Him down (to this view Joh_13:33 is not opposed). Accordingly, these words are to be taken quite as in Joh_7:34, not as referring to the hell into which they would come through death; for Jesus speaks, not of their condition after, but up to, their death.